_Farren

caught a glimpse of the Moonborn Hunter’s maneuver…the very tailend, and then an eruption of shadow and an expulsion of blood. “Shit,” Farren swore, turning his eyes back to the pillar and Arrayah’s massive, skittering, clambering form. He doubted her leaving the pillar would be any better for them than her staying perched upon it, but at least this way there was a chance for them to fight her.

The mixture of the cursed thing’s disturbing, nonsensical singsong…and the monotone of what must have been the presences of the Moonlight and Abyssal Blades respectively did not help matters. He tried to tune them out.

What he didn’t miss, though, was the opportunity that Arrayah’s attack presented him. With the shadow blade still sliding back into darkness, Farren drew the Piercing Rifle, sliding to a stop as he aimed, and then fired, his shot aimed at Arrayah’s head. He didn’t wait to see her reaction, just pushed back into motion and palmed a quicksilver bullet to reload the armament while keeping his gaze locked on her twisted form. If there was no immediate reprisal, Farren would finish reloading, holster the rifle, and draw a blood vial from his pouch, holding it in one hand as he continued to heft the Beastflayer in the other.

No one present in the cavern, not even Farren himself and certainly not Arrayah, would likely ever be able to understand exactly what happened when the azure-eyed Hunter turned his piercing rifle against his monstrous prey. Her head was only a little bigger than a typical human head, not only moving, but jerking around semi-erratically, peeking out from behind full cover, probably as much as twenty meters away, during an instant when he had no time to take aim; it should have been incredibly difficult to hit her at all, and almost impossible to fulfill his goal of hitting her largest eye. But whether it was through divine inspiration, the Cosmos itself bending itself into pretzels to ensure a certain outcome or just Farren discovering himself to be a secret marksman-savant, the quicksilver bullet left the barrel of his gun and zipped directly at the target. Bizarrely, someone with sufficiently superhuman reflexes to perceive bullets in flight – like Hunters – might swear that the trajectory of the bullet even seemed to curve as if to move around the column, and even seemed to an extent to home in on its target.
But no matter the circumstances, the little bead of blood-infused mercury somehow really did hit Arrayah directly in the eye, puncturing it. Not only that, but the special properties of the piercing rifle even bestowed the bullet with near-arcane powers of penetration, and so it continued through the eye and further into the head, through the brain and out the back of her skull. The singsong died on the abomination's lips as she recoiled, utterly discombobulated, and the translating voices in their heads fell silent.

Yet miraculous shot or not, it was still just a little piece of quicksilver whose potency came from Farren's bloodtinge; a bloodtinge that was only average for a Hunter and which had never been empowered. Its corrosive effects were weak, and within a second – long enough for Farren to reload and Ophelia to ring her Moonborn Bell – Arrayah had fully regenerated. And as soon as her eye had reinflated, it instantly became fixed on Farren.
She moved forward just several meters, coming back onto their side of the column, but her attention remained entirely on Farren. And then... saying that Arrayah “jumped” or “leapt” would be misleading, as those terms traditionally entail an initial upward-component to the movement. Rather than anything like that, the maneuver their adversary seemed to perform was more like shot; she launched herself off the side of the column like a missile, darting through the air incredibly fast, the Profane Abyssal Blade held in her two right hands and her clawed left hand extended toward Farren.

And so, while Gerlinde turned around and started running back toward where everyone else were; while Torquil reflexively raised his Loch Shield to protect himself and poised his axe to counterattack; while the Moonborn Hunter started emerging from the floor next to Ophelia... while all of this was happening, Arrayah let out a horrible, blood-curdling shrieked word that, though meaningless to the Hunters, did not appear to prompt the voices in their heads to translate.
“RICCAS!”

_Farren

startled even himself as her largest, glowing orb sputtered out in a gush of blood and bodily fluids, his own azure eyes widening in the dark as he swiftly reloaded his implement and–oh fuck.

Arrayah launched herself in a lunge that carried such force that she hurtled through the air more like a bullet than a massive, human-centipede monstrosity. Farren wasn’t in a position to properly quickstep, so it was more of a roll into a sideways dive that he performed in an attempt to get himself out of the way. The whole scenario was so sudden that he didn’t have the time nor wits about him to think more than one, simple things: ‘I HAVE HER ATTENTION’. It was less an observation than it was a screaming recognition of the shift in circumstances that he had experienced in the space of barely a couple seconds.

If he did manage his maneuver, he’d swiftly roll from stomach onto his back, aim, and attempt to fire on Arrayah’s head once more, but only once she had either turned toward him or come to rest–whichever came first. Should he manage that, well, Farren wouldn’t try to reload, he’d simply hurry to get himself on his feet again, if he had even the chance for that.

Ophelia scarcely had time to be impressed at the ludicrous shot Farren had made, given that she'd just finished ringing the bell to try and summon the Moonborn Hunter once more. Their familiar form began to step through into this world, and Ophelia sighed a quick breath of relief that the Moonborn could be summoned multiple times. A part of her lusted for the strength of echoes Arrayah would surely wield, but that was a distant and dim secondary to the prospect of her true prize: but it was an observation worth noting, so she did. She also wondered whether Farren could shoot her quicksilver bullets--being half-Cainhurst by birth and having drank of Queen Annalise's blood, she reckoned the bullets she made would be rather powerful indeed. She scarcely understood this particular aspect of Hunting, however, and had not the time to put such a plan into motion now.

Ophelia withdrew another blood vial and readied herself to quickstep, not wanting to get involved with Arrayah in melee if she could help it but being prepared to rush in and administer healing to Farren if he needed it. She would not launch herself into imminent danger without another means of immediately saving herself, however, so much of what she was willing to risk would be determined by what happened after the proverbial and literal dust settled--to say nothing of the deepened darkness constricting her vision. Thankfully even with the Mask rune the glow of her blade was enough for just her, as though she were drawing down a shaft of Mother Moon's light into this dank and dismal cavern even now.

The manic grin on Gerlinde's face widened slightly as she watched Arrayah darting through the air like that, only for the sheer force of her own momentum to make even minor corrections difficult enough that Farren's desperate roll was enough for him to avoid her grasping left hand. It was odd... Gerlinde, like Ophelia and Farren, had noticed Arrayah's abrupt and stark change in demeanor when she awakened the Profane Abyssal Blade. She had felt a giggle in her throat when she saw the mutant's bestial, rabid fury give way to a more human, fanatical madness. And though the Profane Abyssal Blade likely required a catalyst to activate its power, like all arcane implements, and that Arrayah might eventually run out of that catalyst, it seemed likely that she could have wiped them all out if she had just stayed on the column and attacked from out of reach.
But then Farren had shot her, and somehow that singular event seemed to have blown away what little rationality she had and made her act in blind rage again. She had also screamed something that the voices in her head had not translated, which probably meant... it was a name? Or just something in Pthumerian that did not have an equivalent in English, like a specific cultural curse? Not that it mattered all that much, of course; it was just Gerlinde grasping at straws to figure out ways she could possibly torment this wonderfully insane creature, since cutting it seemed to barely do anything. Yet for as sudden as her shift into pure aggression had been, she also saw how Arrayah, landing and coming to a sudden halt on the floor right next to Farren, shifted her demeanor once again, with the fiery rage in her eyes giving way to cold, calculating bloodthirst.

Regardless of Gerlinde's pondering, events continued to progress rapidly where Farren and Arrayah clashed. The abomination came to a halt and immediately turned toward the Hunter, which prompted him to fire another shot, intending to inflict another headshot even as she moved against him. The miracle did not repeat, sadly; trying to aim accurately with a weapon meant for mid-range against a monster at point-blank range was no easy feat. But while missing her head was easy, missing the entirety of her enormous frame at distance would be monumentally difficult, so the quicksilver bullet did burrow into her right shoulder.
More importantly, though, was the fact that Arrayah's left hand once more darted out and grasped... not for him, as it turned out, but for the thing he had just used against her. Before he could recover from the recoil of the shot enough to retract the weapon, let alone get back on his feet, Arrayah's huge, clawed fingers closed around the barrel of Farren's piercing rifle, and clenched so hard that he could hear the metal creak.
Maintaining her iron-grip on his firearm, Arrayah then swung her black spear at him like a glaive with both of her right arms, aiming a huge, sweeping horizontal slash at his thigh-level.

Seeing Arrayah begin to crash down at Farren, Ophelia eyed an opportunity to test some of her theories and perhaps offer some measure of protection to Farren too. She quickstepped to her east by five feet, withdrawing the effigial Evelyn from her side and loading it with a quicksilver bullet from her tube. Arrayah had made a similar maneouvre a little before she made a large attack earlier, before she'd transformed, and Ophelia suspected she would do the same again. She aimed carefully at the easiest of Arrayah's eyes--its largest--and timed her shot the way she'd seen done before to coincide with the moment the strike began. Not only would this be a good test of the qualities of her blood, it would help her work out what precisely the weapon she'd been given was--the Shopkeeper manifested it from nothing, in the same way they had for one of Farren's blades, and there were physical, real weapons from the Waking World stored in the chest in the workshop... though she would struggle to determine whether or not it was an arcane implement, given that she was still uncertain of Arrayah's resistance to the Arcane in her transformed state.

Ophelia would otherwise keep a healing vial handy, stowing the Evelyn, and prepare herself to dash in to administer healing to Farren if he needed it--Torquil's earlier prompt was still fresh in her mind, and if it had some sort of stunning or enervating effect (though that may have been specific to the queer way that Arrayah had used her weapon) she would like to be in position to heal Farren to avoid losing him. She recalled how Arrayah's blade had slipped through the Moonborn's own shadow to skewer them the last time it was used, and then to how Arrayah had looked at her, focused for a beat, and then switched her focus to Farren... could Arrayah not strike at her or people within her blade's light with that attack? Ophelia resolved to look for anything that might provide some clarification on that thought, and would continue to study Arrayah's blade keenly. If Farren did not need her assistance and there was a good opening, she'd fire a scintillating blast of light from her blade at Arrayah to test her Arcane resistance in this form--and remain vigilant of Arrayah's strikes in order to dodge them.

_Farren

managed the shot--though not where he'd have preferred--and to at least rise to his feet, but Arrayah’s grip on his Piercing Rifle–coupled with the sound of splintering wood and metal warping under stress was rough on his senses. He got the sense that even before his transformation, it would have bothered him, but with his hearing and tactile senses now significantly enhanced it was a terrible thing. In fact, some distant detached part of him observed, it was almost like she had crushed his own wrist…or perhaps a precious, if silent and inexpressive companion.

Incidentally, Farren did not much like being deprived of friends, faculties, nor precious implements, and so his reaction was not to simply remain in place as her fingers fully tightened, it was to immediately release his grip, pivot grip the Beastflayer and then surge forth into a quickstep, which after a single foot, transitioned immediately into a brief leap. Farren didn’t jump at Arrayah so much as he jumped onto the wrist holding his ruined rifle, before erupting into a quickstep along the path of her stationary arm. Only some small part of his awareness noted the whoosh of air from his left (where Arrayah’s swing had begun) and noted the lightswallowing motion of something as it moved in a deadly horizontal arc.

If it were to strike him–it would not, not in his new position–it likely would have cleaved him in half…or perhaps just disabled his legs by handily removing everything from the thigh down. Fortunately, the hand gripping his rifle was significantly above that trajectory, and better still, her shoulder and head were higher still.

Farren’s resulting actions were as such. A flare of movement up her massive, malformed limb as he made his own attack. Rather than attempt to cleave her head in twain, Farren released the mechanism of the Beastflayer, swung it forward with precision, extending it out in a whipping motion towards the left side of her head as he moved. It would miss unless her head moved into its path, but as Farren’s quickstep took him forward and his momentum dragged the weapon’s linked blades along with it, Farren would pull it in a jerky motion back towards him, and unless she stopped him, one of his whip-glaive’s bladed sections nearest the shaft would hook against the side of Arrayah’s head.

Farren’s trajectory would take him directly past the right side (from his perspective) of Arrayah’s head, onto her shoulder, and then over her twisted body as he kept moving, and with every additional step after his blade had caught on her flesh, his forwards sprint would drag the Beastflayer’s extended blades from temple, across her face, and along the other side of her head in a prolonged–if swift–vicious laceration.

When Farren began to grow too near the many arms upon the centipedal portion of her beastial form, he’d push off her body in a jump to his left, aimed just past her body towards the ground.

It seemed that now, finally, – after the party had had what could easily be interpreted as a remarkably successful and thoroughly lucky battle against a creature whose strength seemed beyond them – their fortunes were starting to turn. Ophelia took the chance to try for a twitch-reaction eye-shot at Arrayah with her own pistol; an incredibly ambitious shot for someone who had most likely never so much as held a firearm of any kind until tonight, let alone trained with pistols: she sent the quicksilver bullet whizzing above and beside the monster, missing her entirely.
Over by the beast herself, Farren set out on a perhaps even more ambitious maneuver, intending to counterattack by jumping onto Arrayah's arm – an arm that was barely wider than one of his feet – before proceeding to assault her from above. It was a flashy and very impressive plan... but that is not what happened. Instead he jumped onto her arm and immediately started slipping on the narrow, rounded limb. He immediately lost the foothold he would need for a quickstep up to target her head, and awkwardly stumbled back down to the floor, still right in front of his opponent. The silver lining was that the jump and brief moment trying to balance on top of Arrayah's arm had been enough to make the scything slash of the Profane Abyssal Blade miss.

Of course, all that meant was that Arrayah could keep up what she had been doing undeterred. Her left hand whipped off to her left, carelessly tossing Farren's piercing rifle away into the gloom of the cavern, while her right arms simply stopped the swing with the black spear from right to left... and swept it back left to right instead, still aiming for Farren's thighs.

When Ophelia's shot missed she suddenly got a sense for how difficult the task she'd attempted was, that this truly was not as easy as "point and aim", and that there was a knack Farren had for it (as well as some amount of luck) that she had an immediate and profound respect for. The briefest instant of time she was afforded to dwell on this feeling immediately over, she attempted to parry Arrayah's reverse swing with a much more sensible quicksilver shot to her centre of mass, figuring the thing that made these bullets effective was simply a delivery of mercury-infused Old Blood. The moment of timing was tense, but her focus was still drawn taut from the earlier shot and this one she was determined to at least hit her target--she aimed and she she fired just before she could see the apex of the swing coming and the momentum beginning to shift. Farren would presumably try to escape still--wisely--but perhaps this could lend them a moment. Gerlinde would certainly appreciate an opening for a visceral attack, of that Ophelia was certain.

_Farren

wobbled briefly, then ended up falling from the perch of her arm, much narrower than he’d processed in the flash of a moment in which he’d made his decision. A shame, but he recovered before his feet touched the stony floor. By the time they had, he’d reassessed, noting the marginal slowing of Arrayah’s swing, at which point his body tensed and then immediately released that coiled power in a backwards quickstep. He let his weapon extend in a swing during the quickstep, aiming for the space across Arrayah’s shoulders and collarbone. Farren kept himself primed for additional movement, not sure precisely how Arrayah would respond to his retreating attack, or Ophelia’s shots at her.

Another small surprised giggle escaped Gerlinde when Ophelia took her second shot at Arrayah, as she now recognized the pattern between those two occurrences: she was trying to time her shots to hit their enemy just as she attacked. It was quite unexpected to her, truthfully; it had taken two days after her becoming a Hunter before anyone thought to explain the potentially disruptive effects of quicksilver when applied at the exact moment the target's Old Blood was being activated – “gun parrying,” as some Hunters had taken to call it – but apparently Ophelia knew about it now, mere hours after metamorphosis. The way she used her pistol suggested she did not have much practice, but from what she could see the timing seemed to match Arrayah's movements quite well... though obviously she did run into the issue of quicksilver bullets moving slower than lead ones, and with Ophelia standing back as she did there would be a small delay.
Watching with keen interest, Gerlinde saw Farren quickstep away pretty much just as the quicksilver bullet darted through the air right next to him, and though she could not see it from her current angle, Gerlinde could tell that the bullet would have hit just as the black spear was swung. Especially Farren would be close enough to tell that while Ophelia's bullet did not penetrate as deeply as the shots from his piercing rifle, they seemed to cause significantly more damage as the skin around the area of impact seemed to momentarily blacken, only for the necrotic flesh to be immediately rejected and healthy tissue grew to replace it. The head of his Beastflayer also hit its target, delivering a cut to Arrayah's shoulder, but it did not do much; in its whip-form, Beastflayer quite simply could not convey enough force to do more than barely pierce her skin. During a quickstep away from his target the force was even less, and as a result Arrayah did not even appear to notice.
But despite the shot hitting its target this time, Arrayah did not appear to be stunned by it the way she would if it had been a successful parry. Gerlinde mentally shrugged; on one hand it might be that Ophelia's timing was just slightly off, but Gerlinde also knew from experience that especially large and powerful beasts were often resistant to gun parries. Interestingly it seemed to have worked earlier when Farren had done it... though to be fair, he had also done it point-blank with dual blunderbusses, and furthermore done so while Arrayah had still been off guard. She made a mental note of having a talk with the trio of fresh Hunters about quicksilver, then shrugged off the thought for now as events progressed and her focus was needed for other matters.

Now, once more, everything seemed to converge in one place and about at the same time. Immediately after Farren had retreated just out of melee range, Gerlinde reached Arrayah from the opposite direction and jumped at her, transforming her saw cleaver into its compact form and starting to assault the abomination's waist viciously. A short distance away Torquil seemed to finally recover from the sheer incredulity of what had just happened and transformed his weapon into its Dane axe version, gripped it with both hands and charged as well.
And over by Ophelia the summoning of the Moonborn Hunter finally completed, with them having fully emerged from the floor, and they promptly set into a mad dash directly at Arrayah. A bluish light flashed on their person announced them conjuring a chikage, onto to immediately sheathe and then unsheathe it, only for its blade to have become coated in what appeared to be unusually viscous blood.

Thoughout all of this, Arrayah looked from one to the next in a way that seemed frantic, almost panicked, as if suddenly realizing that she had allowed herself to be surrounded by enemies. Her clawed left hand swiped back toward Gerlinde, but the Huntress ducked the clumsy attack and kept up her assault. The hand on the thicker of her right arms let go of her weapon, clenched into a fist and swung at Torquil, making him halt his advance just outside her unarmed range to avoid getting hit.
And with a glance of her glowing azure eyes at Ophelia, her last, thinnest arm raised the Profane Abyssal Blade high over her head, as if trying to keep it out of reach of her attackers.

Ophelia was much surer that this attempt would work, though she was not discouraged when it failed to do so. Reasons as to why flashed before her mind's eye, but they were gone as quickly as they came in the face of the immediacy of the the task ahead of them--though Ophelia did permit herself a moment to attempt to commune with the Holy Moonlight Sword once more: Reuniting you... can I do it while Arrayah lives? Is it instant? Should we slay her first?

The barrage of questions was hurried, though confident: they'd made it this far without losing anyone, and Arrayah seemed to be on the back foot. If there was an opportunity to simply end the fight Ophelia felt inclined to take it, figuring the Moonborn would absorb all of the echoes if they did kill Arrayah while they were still here and the true prize--especially after what they'd seen--was the blade.

Recognising the fear and panic within Arrayah, Ophelia saw fit to test another of her theories: she reloaded her Evelyn, stowed it temporarily, fed her own blade another quicksilver bullet and moved back a step, amd then as Arrayah went to punch for Torquil and Gerlinde was hacking away Ophelia fired another slice of coruscating cosmic energy scything up towards Arrayah's thinnest arm at the wrist, hoping to either cause her to drop it owing to the damage (which she found unlikely) or causing Arrayah to panic and make a clumsy and enraged overhead attack with her weapon. In such an eventuality Ophelia was ready to try and parry it again, though her primary focus was still not getting hit and she braced herself to quickstep out of the way of danger and interrupt anything she was doing to do so.

_Farren

managed to evade Arrayah’s swing and as he came out of his Backstep he slid slightly along the ground and completed his swing, drawing the weapon back into its closed state at an angle backwards. Azure eyes already narrowed in focus as he took in the ensuing instants, Farren noted the actions of Torquil, the newly summoned Moonborn and Gerlinde, all while Ophelia observed. Then he noted Ophelia shifting posture and position, the glow of her Moonlight blade shifting in orientation completely as she moved it.

He’d seen that posture before. Farren traced the rough angle the edge of her blade was at as well and then followed it through the air towards….

Farren grinned and pushed forth in a shorter quickstep than before, his already wound up Beastflayer whipping out in a single forceful slash angled up and forwards at Arrayah’s raised arm, as close to the wrist and hand as he could manage. It was a strike in line with ones he’d seen from Torquil–heavy and with a faint bulging and shift of his musculature as he called upon the power of the old blood that coursed and pulsed in his veins. Further, Farren had timed his exit of the forward quickstep such that the glaive’s blade would be the most likely point to strike Arrayah. Ideally, the two strikes–his and Ophelia’s–would be more effective than either on their lonesome.

“Arrayah does not matter...” the whispers endeavored to answer Ophelia's questions, as they always did, albeit fainter and slower now that she was not wearing the Guidance Rune. “Just touch... one awakened half with the other... and incant 'Gestalt Truth'... and in an instant... it will be made whole. But do be aware... that its other half... is surely telling Arrayah... the same thing. She is also a champion... she can also make it whole.”

While Ophelia received the lethargic words of the Holy Moonlight Sword, everything seemed to converge all at once. Gerlinde maintained her rabid assault into the far side of Arrayah, while Torquil and the Moonborn Hunter stepped through after her swinging fist had missed, with each of them delivering mighty strikes to her right and left side, respectively. Ophelia stepped back and had her holy blade noisily charge its cosmic energies before flinging them through the air as a brightly glowing projectile. Farren charged in close and lashed out with his Beastflayer once more, this time targeting the wrist of the hand holding the Profane Abyssal Blade.
And while they all did this, Arrayah's eyes kept shifting from one to the next... while her left hand and free right hand raised and spread to either side, palms upturned. Even though she now had five powerful Hunters cutting into her, she did not even seem to try to defend herself. All she did was to move the thin arm holding her weapon slightly to the side, easily avoiding the very obvious blast of energy fired by Ophelia. Farren's strike hit, but once again barely did anything.

Arrayah's eyes moved, and focused on Ophelia... no, more specifically they fixated on the Holy Moonlight Sword in Ophelia's hands. Her jaw twitched, causing her overgrown teeth to move and rip open her cheek once more, prompting more viscous ooze to flow. And then – with the speed that had seemed so conspicuously absent from her feinted attempts to ward off Gerlinde and Torquil – she abruptly brought down her black spear, blade first... and plunged it deep into her own chest.
What followed only took one second: the instant the Profane Abyssal Blade pierced its wielder's flesh, inky blackness shot out along the floor where she was standing, immediately encompassing everything in a ten meter radius around her, casting it all in deep shadow. Then the shadow stirred, and from within it – from the ground and from Arrayah's body – spontaneously burst dozens of black spears, thrusting upwards and outwards, aiming to impale everything and anything within the shadow.
Gerlinde was instantly pierced by three different spears, while Torquil was riddled with no less than five spears. The Moonborn Hunter had sensed the danger and attempted to quickstep away, but since their quickstep was only five meters they still could not get away in time, and were stabbed by four spears.

After all, the Holy Moonlight Sword could shoot projectiles as well as cause explosions... so surely it would be no surprise that the Profane Abyssal Blade had two ways to manifest its power, too.

_Farren

felt the contact of his blade hitting its mark, but it did little, and it seemed Arrayah had enough of her wits about her to avoid Ophelia’s arcane moonlight. Grimacing, Farren began to withdraw the weapon–and had just managed to finish doing so–when he noticed Arrayah reorienting her weapon. A flash of dread went through his veins, but there was no time to act, or process. He caught sight of the Moonborn’s quickstep, and did much the same himself, moving away at speed, but it didn’t matter. Swiftly joining the dread and old blood coursing through him, searing sensations struck as shadowy projections of the Abyssal Blade slipped up from the earth and pierced him. A sound, half guttural scream, half fearsome growl erupted from his throat even as the shadows slid through his flesh and then out the other side, leaving him proliferated with shade-filled holes. Perhaps three, perhaps five, of the projections had impaled him, and at a sharp enough angle that they briefly lifted him before he began to slide down their hafts. Fierce, grinding, aching agony crashed over him in a constant flux of horrific feeling.

“Ffffuuuck!” he cried out hoarsely, breath stolen as one lung collapsed completely. None of the blades hit his heart, but one had gotten close. He felt his body working in overdrive to attempt to heal itself, but the cause of the damage remained, impeding the process. Not to mention that they kept sending intense, mind wracking agony through his entire body. Farren’s azure eyes flashed with intense emotion, wide from pain, then narrowed as he gritted his teeth and bore the pain.

When the blades finally retracted–or dissipated–he would be like a puppet with its strings cut. There was no catching oneself with such grievous damage having been inflicted. It was fortunate that his reserves had been essentially full, but the wounds would likely have them dwindling. The moment he could, Farren would slam a blood vial into his thigh with his free hand. Miraculously, his weapons remained by-and-large unscathed, aside from a few clean scratches. Ah…and it seemed one of the hunter’s pistols at his lower back had some damage along and through the grip. Farren growled as muscles and bones snapped into place or regrew entirely. His clothes were partially shredded, but he was decent enough, if covered in blood and gore as unhealable aspects sloughed off in favor of regrowing new parts.

The moment Farren could reasonably move, even if pained, he’d push to his feet swiftly and retreat to make some distance between him and the horror they faced. If anyone else had similar ideas, he made sure not to be too closely packed, finding that them having been relatively close together had only made it easier for her to get almost all of them.

Rather than rush back into the fray, Farren would began to pace in a steady counter-clockwise motion to find a new position, forcing Arrayah to split her attention further. He was moving roughly towards Ophelia, though she was a bit further out than him. Either way he was firmly out of Arrayah's current range, in terms of the Area attack she’d just dealt them.

Ophelia watched as Arrayah dodged the blast of energy--expected, really, given how small a target she was trying to hit--and in the same motion unleashed another of the Profane Abyssal Blade's powers. She watched as Arrayah stabbed herself and shadow began to creep from her, and she quickstepped a full five meters back as soon as she saw the encroaching darkness shooting out towards her. She couldn't help but notice how even the refulgent aura of her own holy blade did nothing to stay its advance, and even with a full movement back she barely managed to escape the massive circle of shadow before a torrent of shadowy spears erupted from it and impaled everyone but her. She breathed a slight sigh of relief at having escaped it, but grimaced at the thought of what it would do to the others given Torquil's earlier description of what being impaled by the shadowy blades before.

"Snakey?" Ophelia called out, figuring Gerlinde would understand but Arrayah wouldn't, and seeing as the three were all clumped together it seemed like there would be no better time to use that concentrated burst of healing. Ophelia noticed Farren recover separately and move outwards, beginning to circle his way towards her general direction, and she suddenly got to thinking: Farren had the hourglass of sand that could halt time briefly, didn't he? Knowing that the transformation would be instant if she managed to find an opportune moment, that they could effectively end this fight immediately and complete their goal... Ophelia beckoned Farren towards her with her free hand, though kept most of her attention on Arrayah to be ready to avoid an attack. If Farren got close enough that they could whisper, Ophelia would say the following:

"Give me the hourglass, love? I can end this if an opportunity arises."

Knowing Gerlinde--and to a lesser extent the Moonborn--Ophelia was quite certain that even being impaled would not stop them from attacking. Ophelia hoped the constant aggression would keep enough of Arrayah's attention that this little exchange could be kept secret from her, but reckoned there wasn't enough information for a mad beast like Arrayah to act on her burgeoning plans... though she wasn't sure about the Profane blade, and what it surely whispered to Arrayah.

“Snakey?” Ophelia called out, and that single word bounced around chaotically and meaninglessly in Gerlinde's head for a second. Unlike someone like Farren or Victor, let alone absurd cases like Dietrich, Gerlinde had not been a fighter before she became a Hunter, nor anything that had allowed her to build a tolerance for stress or fear. Once upon a time she had been a humble wench serving drinks in a tavern; a simple life for a simple girl, who was terrified that she might one day be left on her own in the world, with no roof over her head and no food to eat. A thoroughly ordinary girl who worried, who had to force herself to look the patrons in the eyes rather than stare at her own feet and who never complained even when the tavern-keeper beat her. Back then fear had been her sole motivator, and fear of pain became one of her most core drives.
Now, though? After her time in Byrgenwerth, giving birth to one grotesque creature after another? After having survived there on her own for almost five years, sustaining herself off the frenzy-inducing venom her own larval child offered her in return for her mother's milk, supplemented with old, raw and probably human eyeballs? After that child being taken away and her becoming an immortal Hunter, which was the only reason she was still alive after all the horrid wounds, afflictions and deaths she had endured these past several days? Fear was alien to her, nothing but a fading memory, and pain... she was accustomed to pain.
Even so, being unexpectedly skewered by three different and distinctly arcane spears undeniably discombobulated her a bit and made it harder to think. At the time Ophelia called out, right as their prey had wrested the spear from her chest and the multitude of projected spears surrounding her vanished back into whatever nightmare they came from, Gerlinde had still been weighing her options. Was this worth a blood vial, she wondered, or should she just let herself die and come back to try again? Dying was no big deal to her; she was used to it. Blood vials, on the other hand, could be a bother to get more of. So when Ophelia suggested Snakey, reminding her of the power she had caught in it from the lightbeast, Gerlinde simply accepted without a second thought. She was not usually one to obey orders... but she figured it probably made sense. She was hurt and so were the others. She did not quite have the mental capacity to consider it more herself – she was dying, after all – and merely reached over to stroke the snake molt's head and release its ability.

A familiar warm, soft glow, like the calm and comfortable radiance of the hearth at the core of a home, flowed from Gerlinde's arm and enveloped her in its healing light. She felt the wounds that had been failing to regenerate abruptly mend and her regenerative potential restored. About eight meters from her it also reached the Moonborn Hunter, restoring them even as they struggled to recover and stand back up from the staggering damage they had just received. About five meters from her it reached Torquil, who – much like Gerlinde herself – had been right on the verge of death, yet found himself fully restored by the arcane blessing of the lightbeast.

And right next to Gerlinde, a mere meter from her and closer than anyone else, the brightness bathed Arrayah, too.

While Farren was still recovering and just beginning to move, long before Ophelia would even have the option to whisper anything to him, Arrayah moved first. She surged forward without warning or hesitation, using her right first to backhand Torquil across the side of his head, knocking him back down instantly. Half a second later, her left hand scythed through the air with its wicked claws, shredding the Moonborn Hunter's mask and drawing a spray of blood from their face while the abomination rushed past them.
Because now that they were all nice and scattered, and they were all recovering from being stabbed by the spears, Arrayah's priorities evidently shifted entirely. She ignored Gerlinde and Farren, and she left Torquil and the Moonborn Hunter with those farewell presents... while she moved at full speed directly toward Ophelia, closing the distance between them in about three seconds. She held the Profane Abyssal Blade out and behind her in her thinner right arm, intentionally far out of reach of Ophelia, while her stronger right came arcing from the right side and clawed left hand moved from the left, converging on the middle to grapple her.

Ophelia witnessed the unleashed light with a hint of a smirk--she knew from before that the power was indiscriminate, that it would heal Arrayah too, but to lose anyone in this pivotal moment would have been worse than letting Arrayah recover some of her vitality--vitality they'd not even come close to depleting in her awakened form. This fight was no longer about wounds, the wretched vitality of beasts that sustained them all--it was about a single instance of time. A free moment where she would be the champion to unite the two halves of their blade, and in depriving Arrayah of her weapon they would immediately win the fight--a moment that would come to pass through strategy and not savagery. Ophelia herself was no fighter--before the night began she could not even walk, let alone run--but her mind had taken all of that unused energy and grown mighty indeed, nurtured by her tutelage under the witches. She was still getting accustomed to everything the Old Blood now allowed her to do, it was true, but strategy... that was something she knew well. One did not get abandoned by one's parents at a small and tender age and survive if one was not pragmatic and ruthless--qualities that no doubt had endeared her to her mentors. Perhaps, many moons ago, she'd even have sacrificed Gerlinde and Torquil to get closer to her goal... but that was not strategy, that was folly--they were expendable, in a sense, but only if their deaths would serve a grander purpose. Sacrificing them at this stage would do nothing but leave them without the numbers to distract their foe and seize the moment when the light of opportunity shone upon it.

With Arrayah hurtling towards her, Ophelia reckoned she should have felt fear. The champion of darkness' full attention finally turned to her should have caused her knees to tremble and buckle, caused her to flee for her life, but fear... fear felt like a distant memory. The playful sprites of gentle guidance warded all of it away, left her clear-headed and ready for whatever would happen next: and with their foe headed straight to her, Ophelia knew well what she had to do. She let Arrayah get close, primed and tensed and charged to quickstep away, and let Arrayah begin her motion of grappling before Ophelia quickstepped a full five meters to her left, ducking and weaving under and through Arrayah's stronger arm to get clear of the danger and give her the most time possible before Arrayah could change course. Her sudden burst of reflexes over, Ophelia exited the quickstep into an immediate and full sprint arcing towards the cluster of her allies still recovering.

She kept in mind Arrayah's various modes of attack now revealed to them: she needed to ensure she could quickstep to get the full ten meters away from Arrayah should she repeat her previous attack, and was still unsure if Arrayah could target her with one of the ranged attacks through shadows--surely if that were an option, Arrayah would have done so relentlessly from the beginning? With that in mind, the arc she made was fairly shallow, but enough that if she were to quickstep the fullest distance to her left she would at least have a chance (with the necessary wind-up taking time) to get out of distance of any of Arrayah's attacks. "Farren, to me!" she shouted as she began to move, continuously scanning and assessing the battlefield to be sure of his relative position and Arrayah's--getting close to him was key to her plans, after all, and if Arrayah focused on them she would leave herself vulnerable to attacks from the others. Ophelia only hoped the beast could not ignore the threat that three powerful Hunters posed and give Ophelia enough breathing room to fill Farren in.

Unfortunately it seemed that Arrayah, now restored by the lightbeast's saved grace yet still with her mind awakened, would not allow Ophelia to escape so easily. All three of her arms moved simultaneously: her left hand and stronger right one were swiftly and decisively retracted and brought together, and she dug her claws into her own wrist and coated them in blood. Her thinner right one maneuvered the Profane Abyssal Blade in front and above her, sword-like blade facing down. And then, as one, all three hands grasped the shaft of the spear before she slammed it down into the ground, all in less than two seconds.
The result of this was twofold. The most immediate and arguably most urgent thing that resulted from this was that a black spear abruptly thrust mightily out of the ground immediately behind her, from the shadow cast by her own luminous sword, aiming to skewer her.
Secondly, the Profane Abyssal Blade was unsurprisingly, immobile once plunged into the floor, which the monstrosity appeared to use to her own dubious benefit. In a maneuver that showed a remarkable disdain for the laws of physics and disregard for the condition of her own body, Arrayah used her spear as an anchor, holding on to it firmly with all three hands and using it to not only immediately halt her forward momentum, but as a fulcrum to swing her entire long body around, doing a quick 180 degree turn so she was once again facing Ophelia.

As soon as she had come to face the right direction again, Arrayah wrested her weapon from the ground and surged toward Ophelia anew.

_Farren

had just risen and readied himself when Ophelia’s voice called out his name. His head whipped to her positions, eyes taking things in immediately. The way Arrayah was about to plunge her spear into the ground, the way she’d drawn the old blood beforehand. He called out to her a warning, “Shade Spear!”

Whether Ophelia managed to evade or not, Farren gritted his teeth at the sudden pivot Arrayh made, the length of her form round on Ophelia, looming as Arrayah swiftly began to pick up speed once more. ‘To her? The hell am I meant to do,’ his mind supplied grimly, but he didn’t give the thought much of his time or attention, he just hefted his weapon and broke into an admittedly slow jog in her direction. Given the danger Arrayah posed–and the fact that the mad beast was certainly faster than Ophelia–his ally would certainly realize his own fatigue as he moved far less adroitly than he had been up until that point. The frenetic action of the battle against the maddened wielder of the Abyssal Blade had clearly begun to take its toll on him. He was conserving energy.

As he moved, Farren tried to consider what mad plan the witch might have to deal with their foe. Did she want him to try and stun her at the precise moment she tried to strike her down? Should he draw his pistols to make an attempt? Did she need something he had?

“Plan?!” he cried out, voice mostly repaired, but sounding heavier, labored, as it cut through the noise of Arrayah’s rapid approach. He hoped she’d reply quickly enough to give him time to adjust and then act.